Henjin_Quilones

Adding kids usually means less time rather than more! I've got another one coming in the next week or so, so I am sure this summer will be less fruitful LEGO-wise than I might have hoped. But wishful thinking! The build itself is great, though I can see the points others have made about the hill being too low (beneath the level of the top of the grasses) and the transition being too abrupt, but those are minor. The field on its own looks great, the tree looks great (I am always jealous of the droid arm and ax collection you must have), and the fig posing is also great. Nicely done!

Fantastic build, Ecc! I love the buildings and the architecture. The tiles edging the corners of the buildings are my favorite part, I think, since it looks so good, but the whole thing looks great together. The use of the gates for metal awnings/trellises is clever, and the bridge structure is also great. My one complaint about the build is the same as Garmadon's, that the water is too dull in comparison to the rest. It's not unrealistic, but it fades into the various bleys of the stone path and buildings (when my wife looked over my shoulder, she thought that it was concrete at first); an underlayer of blue would have helped it, I think, just to make it contrast slightly with the stonework. That's something relatively small in an otherwise excellent build! Thanks for re-christening it into the Guilds, rather than being just an Assassin's Creed build, as it is nice to see more of Varlyrio.

I agree with Titus, a few more leaves would be great. The cobblestone path looks very nice, though, and I like the use of the bars for tall grass. The story continues to develop, and I look forward to seeing what you can do with Dragonstone!

My one year anniversary of joining Eurobricks is tomorrow (though I waited until June 27th before posting anything)! Congrats on two good years!

Always...

Nice little vignette! I like the setting and the characters, and the story to go along with it is good, too. The flowerpots are a nice detail.

The cobblestone texture of the street is great! The angle of the house is nicely done, too, and the SNOT ground is great. I love your small vignettes showing the daily life of your settlement. I can see what you mean about not much texture, but at the same time, in such a small footprint, sometimes less is more. Too many textures or colors would actually be overwhelming, but I think you have struck a nice balance here, actually. Nicely done!

Very nice! I love the size of those trees, especially. The layout is well done, too, with the different elevations. I would expect some more small trees on the edge of the forest, or some heavier bushes, though, rather than tall trees right up to the edge, just in terms of how most forests that I have seen look. That being said, the build is tremendous and excellent, and the lights add a certain something extra. Great job!

1. First and most recent builds for me. Or in picture form, and 2. I joined because I wanted a community to support my LEGO hobby. Last summer I had recently moved away from some friends with whom I had used to build, and I was away from my bricks that were packed in storage for a while, so I found the Guilds as a way to cope with the temporary sundering. I read through the stories, delved into the lore, and began to study and comment on the builds of others here. I fell in love with the idea of building a world collaboratively, in a fantasy setting, and it has taken off from there. I love building, I love storytelling, and the Guilds have allowed me to combine the two. And it is astonishing to see the improvement, not only in myself, but also in those who joined around the same time as I did. The most exciting thing for me, though, what appeals to me most, is telling my story, set against a larger backdrop, and illustrating it with the builds. It is not an either/or proposition for me; build and story are both important and essential, in my opinion.

Glad you liked it, Gunman! I tried to include those whom I could, and the clone trooper face from The Clone Wars sets worked well for a fleshie Lurikeen face. Thank you for the praise! Glad you like it! It was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun to build. Thanks! The torso comes from Poison Ivy from The LEGO Batman Movie. I got it with the Scuttler set (70908). It is one of my favorite torsos!

A very nice, action-packed snowscape! The fig posing is great, and I like the trees, especially the big one on the far left.

Those helmets are great for battlements there, and the dark red creates an excellent contrast with the tan sand. I love the texture you have created on the wall, too. The gate is also excellent; you seem to have a knack for creating distinctive and creative entrances to things. Great job on the landscape and the fig posing, as well. Overall, a lovely MOC!

Thank you for mentioning me among such other great builders! I am honored, truly, though I also do not consider myself to be that great. Others have already mentioned many great things to keep in mind, but I will share some insights from my own process. First, I never use LDD, or really even carefully plan anything out. LDD takes away from the tactile experience, decreases my spatial awareness, and is just awkward for me to use. I respect those who can do it well, but it is not for me. Nor are careful sketches or detailed plans; occasionally I will sketch something out hastily during brainstorming, but most of my design work is done in my head or on the spot. Touching the bricks and seeing how they fit together is key, for me. It is very easy to get locked into a certain mindset for building, such as "studs point up", so it is helpful for me to occasionally try to invert my perspective or build from a different angle. Second, I think that experimentation with different connections is vital. If you get a new piece, ask yourself: "How can this connect? How many different ways? With how many different pieces?" I keep a detailed list of my parts and their attributes in my head (if only I had the same memory for other things!), so when I encounter a problem, I have a database to consult. I stop for several minutes from time to time, mulling through different pieces that could apply to a given situation. Then I try a few out to see how they work. Usually only one looks good or works well enough, and sometimes none do and I have to change what I wanted to do. There are things I have built and rebuilt many times to get the result I wanted. Third, LEGO is to me a combination of geometry and art; keeping in mind various proportions, like two bricks wide is the equivalent of five plates high, or six bricks wide equals five high, and which parts have half-plate heights involved, keeps builds looking sharp even when building with studs pointed every which way. Again, a lot of this comes down to playing with the bricks a bunch and remembering how they fit together. I look at official sets for some technical details, but browsing Flickr and various forums here are extremely helpful for thinking outside the box and trying to move past your comfort zone. If I see something I really like, I fave it on Flickr to try later or else go and put the pieces together that way then and there. It then becomes another tool in my arsenal. I spend way more time than would be prudent on Flickr and various LEGO sites, following true masters of the craft and their builds and techniques. Fourth, it may be necessary to spend a longer time on your builds. I don't know how much time you spend now, but I know that many of my builds are at least multi-day efforts. It is true that some builds fly together in a matter of an hour or two, but many others take weeks or even months. I once spent over 8 hours hunched over my table working on a mosaic in a floor trying to get it right. It takes time to take things apart and rebuild them better. It takes time to find the right piece to solve your issue. It takes time to do the calculations for the geometry of the LEGO system in your head. Building well takes time. So, perhaps more time would be good. I cannot tell you how many nights I have had a hard time falling asleep as I mentally manipulated the bricks trying to see how they can fit together. I don't dream in LEGO yet. but I drive by buildings or trees or cliffs and ponder which bricks would bring them to life the best. I start to see in LEGO, if you will. I think, ooh, that part could be used for the grill of that semi-truck, and file it away for later use, or capture the single small golden-leaved tree in the midst of the forest and plan to use it in a build, or things like that. The more time you spend, the more time you want to spend, and the more money, until you are more or less obsessed. Fifth (sorry this is dragging on so long), far from using less parts, I would say that generally you will use more and more and more as your ideas and your abilities (and hopefully your wallet) expand. Sixth, as @Ayrlego said, photography is huge. It is very frustrating as a builder (speaking from experience) to build something that looks great in person, that you really like and are proud of, only to have it look like crap in a picture. I recently bought a new, nicer camera myself and have been trying to improve my presentation. It really, really matters. Good photos make an average build look good, a good build look great, and a great build mind-blowing; conversely, bad photos make a great build look ok, good build look mediocre at best, and an average build look crappy. I hope that this helps! Best of luck in your building!

Looks good, but I will say that from a practical perspective your cheese slopes around the arrow slits should be turned the other way; as it is now, they will be funneling any arrows into the holes instead of keeping them out. The composition is good, though, and I love the lush foliage. Great work!

Excellent work, Kai! It looks great. My favorite detail is the bucket handles stuck into the bottom of 1x2 bricks to be used as drawers, though there are so many other little things to notice. The pain of tying up those items to hang from the ceiling was worth it, as it creates a lovely effect. The shield as a serving tray is also nice. Keep it up!

Great story as usual, en_zoo! You continue to have me intrigued by Laesonar and his past, as he keeps getting more and more mysterious. The build itself is fine for its purpose, though it would have been better with better pictures. Despite your disclaimer, I really like the tree to the right, the bigger one, and find it nicer than the rocks, which are just a bit too regular for my taste. They are not bad at all, just too uniform. Overall a very nicely done landscape, though, with the vegetation fitting nicely into the rocks and the path integrated well, too. Good work!

The wooden part of the tower looks splendid, and the tree is great as well. The stonework on the tower is a bit too busy for my taste, not texture-wise, necessarily, but color-wise. Four colors and at least 6 different texture techniques in such a small area makes for a jumbled-looking building, and not in a run-down kind of way. The fig combos, though, are great, and I love the use of Sven as a reindeer mount.

Thank you for your praise, Brandon! Use all the things you like; I know that I borrow stuff left and right from other builders, if it looks good. I am glad you approve of Lord Stark leading the charge, too! I tried to include as many sigfigs as possible of the more currently active builders, to emphasize how universal the struggle is. Wow, thanks, SK! Thank you for taking the time to break it all down. The earth tones seemed appropriate for the elves, and are something I hope to continue to incorporate into my Hesperian builds. The smaller builds for the individual builders were rather fun to make, as each of them challenged me to confront problems in ways other than my own natural instinct for building; there are so many different styles and excellent builders out there, so I tried to pay tribute to that fact in the series. The neck brackets do connect the additional posts, by the way, since it looked too bare with just the main posts around the doorway. I love the spinner base's versatility as a part, and so I have a bunch of them now! The battle scene turned out pretty well, as you said, and I tried to incorporate details that marked each guild as distinct. The Mitgardian trees are inspired by you and @Ecclesiastes, of course, two of the finest Mitgardian builders out there. I am glad you like the Necromancer's Chamber, as that one was one of the more difficult to conceptualize and execute, and even harder to photograph. It looked great in person, better than the pictures show, as all the black tends to blend together. Steal the mosaic! Improve upon it! Use it in other things if you like! Everyone in Historica can use it freely, and I would be honored to see it around or to hear that it popped up at conventions here or there. The pile of capes seemed fitting, given that most sigfigs wear capes, but inside people would take them off; somewhat obscured by the capes are the piles of weapons and other gear in the corner, too. There are a lot of sigfigs packed into that room! Once again, thanks, SK! Thanks, Grover! High praise indeed! I am glad you like both the builds and the story, as both took time! I neglected some other stuff in real life to cram in as much building as I could, and, since I am a teacher, having Spring Break in there helped tremendously. Without the extension I would have been toast, though!

That does sound nice...

Great work, SK! It looks good as always. Nice job making it look so close in that scale to the original. I love the way you did the buttresses on the back.

Great posing, as usual! The horse looks caught in the moment, so much so that in this snapshot not a single hoof is actually touching the ground. The dust trail is excellent and adds to the sense of haste. I love the irregular base on the black base, as it makes it look sharp. The background is adequate, but to be honest, it took me three or four times looking at the picture to even notice the background, since I was so caught up in the excellent posing of the horse. It thus serves its purpose and does not distract nor detract from the action. The saddlebags and saddle are a nice touch, too.

Excellent work, Maestro! This looks great! The curvature of the tower is lovely, the texturing, too, and the base and vines complement the picture nicely. My favorite part is the small section of roof over the door, though, for its organic curve. The brick-built banner is a nice touch.

Wow, thanks! Unfortunately I do not have enough of those parts at the moment, and am unlikely to pick them up for a while, but this is truly awesome. Thank you for sharing it!

I'm good with that, too!

Thanks, En_zoo! I agree that these are my best builds yet. I'm glad that the details were not lost among it all! It took a lot of time, a lot of thought, and a lot of sacrifice of other things to put it all together. I did my best to incorporate Historica as I have seen it in my time here, while also being true to what came before, giving honor to some of the more prolific/famous builders by imitating their styles, and trying to include as many sigfigs as I could in general. And I did my best to make the sigfigs look good - and ones with big personalities came out a bit, like Laesonar. Thank you for your praise! Thank you, Garmadon! I am glad you like them all, and the last two are the best, I think; at very least, the best photographed and presented. Thanks, Exetrius! I'm a bit biased, too! Your recent builds inspired me to think of the solution to the Raavage problem, so it was only fitting that your characters be the ones to take him down, since it was pretty clear that conventional warfare strategies would not be effective. I am glad you approve of my presentation of them! I'd like to think that all Historicans had a part in taking down the menace to peace and freedom, so it was only right to try to represent that in the story as best as I could.